AP 118 · No. 11 Section II · Aircraft Plate 59 / 370

Plate 59 of 370 · Between the wars · Three-engined biplane airliner

Boeing 80A

80A-1 NC224M, painted as Boeing 80A-1 NC224M ‘City of Auburn’, the only surviving Boeing 80, flown by Boeing Air Transport on its San Francisco–Chicago mail and passenger route, later a freighter in Alaska, recovered from an Anchorage dump in 1960 and restored for The Museum of Flight, Seattle: Boeing’s three-engined biplane airliner of 1928, with three Pratt & Whitney Hornet radials (one in the nose, two between the wings), a deep slab-sided fuselage with a ribbed metal nose, an enclosed cockpit, a cabin for eighteen passengers, a triple-fin tail and a fixed tailwheel undercarriage: a deep green nose and light grey rear fuselage, a cream window band edged in green and orange, ‘City of Auburn’ in orange script and the Boeing Air Transport emblem on the nose, ‘UNITED AIR LINES’ on the rear fuselage, BOEING / NC / 224M on the rudder and U.S. MAIL / C.A.M. 18 on the fin, orange upper-wing surfaces and aluminium elsewhere with orange leading-edge trim, bare engines with aluminium exhaust collectors and silver two-bladed propellers with orange tips, as photographed at the museum (no Boeing 80 is in a UK museum; shape from a Model 80 three-view checked against photographs of the 80A-1, with the three-fin tail from photographs; bracing wires and engine mounts are simplified and small stencils are left off).

3D model

Turn it over

A procedural model built in Blender from published dimensions, drawings and photographs, painted as Boeing 80A-1 NC224M ‘City of Auburn’, the only surviving Boeing 80, flown by Boeing Air Transport on its San Francisco–Chicago mail and passenger route, later a freighter in Alaska, recovered from an Anchorage dump in 1960 and restored for The Museum of Flight, Seattle: Boeing’s three-engined biplane airliner of 1928, with three Pratt & Whitney Hornet radials (one in the nose, two between the wings), a deep slab-sided fuselage with a ribbed metal nose, an enclosed cockpit, a cabin for eighteen passengers, a triple-fin tail and a fixed tailwheel undercarriage: a deep green nose and light grey rear fuselage, a cream window band edged in green and orange, ‘City of Auburn’ in orange script and the Boeing Air Transport emblem on the nose, ‘UNITED AIR LINES’ on the rear fuselage, BOEING / NC / 224M on the rudder and U.S. MAIL / C.A.M. 18 on the fin, orange upper-wing surfaces and aluminium elsewhere with orange leading-edge trim, bare engines with aluminium exhaust collectors and silver two-bladed propellers with orange tips, as photographed at the museum (no Boeing 80 is in a UK museum; shape from a Model 80 three-view checked against photographs of the 80A-1, with the three-fin tail from photographs; bracing wires and engine mounts are simplified and small stencils are left off). Drag to orbit, scroll or pinch to zoom · download .glb (1.4 MB)

Data plate

Specification

First flight, number built and top speed are for the whole family (Model 80 & 80A); engine, crew and dimensions are for the 80A-1 NC224M modelled here.

History

The 80A-1

In 1927 Boeing Air Transport won the air mail contract for the route from San Francisco to Chicago, and flew it with single-engined Boeing 40s that carried mail and two passengers. To carry more passengers over the Rocky Mountains in safety, Boeing designed a bigger aircraft with three engines, the Model 80: a large biplane with a Pratt & Whitney Wasp in the nose and one under each upper wing, a welded steel-tube fuselage, a cabin for twelve and an enclosed flight deck for the two pilots. It was Boeing’s first aircraft designed from the start to carry passengers. The first flew in 1928, and four were built.

The Model 80A followed in 1929, with a longer cabin for 18 passengers and the more powerful Hornet engine. Its cabin was furnished like a Pullman railway carriage, with leather seats, reading lamps, forced-air ventilation and hot and cold running water. Twelve were built, and they were later fitted with extra fins on the tailplane to improve directional control, becoming 80A-1s. One, the 80B, was given an open cockpit, as some pilots preferred.

On 15 May 1930 Ellen Church, a registered nurse, flew on a Boeing 80A from Oakland to Cheyenne as the world’s first airline stewardess. Boeing Air Transport had hired eight nurses to look after passengers who were nervous or airsick, and the idea was soon copied by other airlines. The Boeing 80s flew the route until the all-metal Boeing 247 monoplane replaced them in 1933 and 1934, after which several were sold off for work as freighters, some of them in Alaska.

This airframe

80A-1 NC224M ‘City of Auburn’

NC224MThe airframe modelled

NC224M, construction number 1082, was built as an 80A in 1929 for Boeing Air Transport and flew its San Francisco to Chicago route as an 80A-1. It was later sold and went north to Alaska, where it was flown as a freighter, for a time by the bush pilot Bob Reeve, and it ended its working life there. In 1960 it was found on a rubbish dump at Anchorage, the only Boeing 80 left, and was brought back to Seattle and restored. It was the first aircraft acquired by the group that became The Museum of Flight, Seattle, where it is displayed today. The model shows it as it is displayed there, in its Boeing Air Transport colours: a deep green nose and light grey rear fuselage, a cream window band edged in green and orange, ‘City of Auburn’ in orange script and the Boeing Air Transport emblem on the nose, ‘UNITED AIR LINES’ on the rear fuselage, BOEING, NC and 224M on the rudder and U.S. MAIL, C.A.M. 18 on the fin, orange upper wing surfaces and aluminium elsewhere, bare Hornet engines and silver propellers with orange tips. Its shape follows a three-view of the Model 80, with the 80A-1’s longer cabin and three-fin tail taken from photographs; the bracing wires and engine mounts are simplified and small stencils are left off. No Boeing 80 is in a UK museum.

Where to see one

Not on charge

The only survivor, 80A-1 N224M, recovered from an Alaskan dump in 1960 and restored, is at The Museum of Flight, Seattle.

All 370 plates

Profiles and models are procedural interpretations built in Blender from published dimensions, three-view drawings and photographs of each airframe. Treat the museum aircraft as the reference.